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By
Arupa Mahajan

Maulan’s Ideals

Moulana Abdul HamidKhan first journeyed to Assam in the year 1904 at the age of 24 from his
birthplace of Tangail of East Bengal and he considered Assam as his homeland.
At that time he was moved by the sufferings of the 2.5 million Bengali Muslim
peasant. He worked for them and tried to organize them. He came again in the
early 1930s and spent his 15 years of political leadership in Assam as an
uncompromising voice of the toiling masses. The Moulana of Bhasanchar of Dhubri
district became the folk hero of the oppressed peasantry whom he organized and
led for their movement for justice and became popularly known as Moulana
Bhasani. His ideological position became
amply clear when he told the great Chinese leaders Mao and Zhou that he was
impressed with China’s progress and social transformation, and while he liked
everything of them, regretted that Chinese lacked faith in God. To him struggle
against all forms of oppression and discrimination was a religious duty. He
used the religious ideas of rubu`biyah(anti-communalism) and jihad against
oppression, discrimination and imperialism.

Secular Political
Outlook

His secular credential
was also apparent at the time of partition from his cherished dream of united
Assam – Bengal which went against the notion of two-nation theory and he
advocated a confederation of seven sisters of NE-India and East Bengal
(Bangladesh) in his last days. That his demand to include Assam in Pakistan
during partition had the connotation different from his Muslim League colleagues
became apparent from the challenge of the Congress leaders by saying that : “One
Moulana will be enough to divide Pakistan.” Historical documents further
revealed that Moulana Bhasani irked Indira Gandhi and her government by
reviving his old demand for uniting the peasantry of Assam, Bengal, and East
Pakistan in a continued struggle for social and economic justice. During the
war of independence Bhasani advocated that Bengalis be given the chance to win
their own war even if it meant prolonging the guerrilla struggle against the
Pakistani military. This stand, along with his known leaning towards Chinese communist
dispensation and coupled with his pre-partition advocacy of a united front of
peasantry cutting across national boundaries and his demand for an Independent
Assam, made him suspect in the eyes of Indian leaders. After that he was almost
under house arrest in India and returned to Bangladesh in March 1972.

Uncompromising for the
cause

On the issues of the
just cause of the toiling masses and most oppressed immigrant peasantry of
Assam and building resistance against peasant-eviction and Bangal Khedao movement,
he was so committed that he even openly criticised his Muslim league colleague Syed
Saddullah whom he supported on many occasions against Gopinath Bordoloi in
government formation in Assam assembly by saying that the apparent difference
between these two political leaders was, in fact, a matter of a Tupi (a cap on
Saddullah’s head) and a Tiki (a bunch of hair on the rear of Bordolo’s head).
This revealed the fact that he was always against the landed gentry and the
vested interests and unequivocally sided with the toiling masses even when he
was fighting for his own religious brethren.

Secular Political
leanings

This widely revered Sufi
itinerant being impressed by the sustained effort of Deshabandhu Chitta Ranjan
Das to forge Hindu-Muslim unity joined Swarajya Party and acted as a grassroot
level foot soldier of the party till the sudden death of C. R. Das in June,
1925. His journey as a Muslim league leader started in Assam in the year 1934
when he was elected president of the party and started organizing the migrant Muslim
peasantry of Assam to fight against severe injustice and brutal repression. But
within the ambit of the overarching Muslim League elite leadership, he
established a different character of Assam Muslim League with his own brand of
politics which was guided by the principle of the toiling masses, for the
toiling masses and by the toiling masses
under his charismatic mass-leadership.

During partition

His role in Sylhet
partition is often criticized by the Bengali Hindu leadership of Assam. But no attempt
is made to view his role at the backdrop of his long unflinching role in Assam to
build Hindu-Muslim unity. Despite the prevalence of serious Hindu-Muslim
tension immediately before, during, and after the observance of Direct Action
Day, no communal riot broke out anywhere in Assam mainly due to the
non-communal nature of Bhasani’s struggle against the Line System and Bangal
Kheda movements. Of course, a host of dedicated Hindu leaders in Assam (most of
them critics of the Hindu Mahashabha’s communal policy) did lend support to
Bhasani’s genuine efforts of maintaining friendship and goodwill between Hindu
and Muslims even in the communally charged situation. The political situation
at that time was very volatile because of the frequent confrontation between
the supporters of Ambikagiri Roy Chaudhury, the general secretary of Assam
Hindu Mahasabha and the chief leader of the communally-motivated Bangal Kheda
movement during the years between 1945 and 1947 and the supporters of Moulana
Bhasani, the undisputed leader of the Bengali muslim peasantry in Assam. After
the installation of Bordoloi Government, the Bangal Kheda movement in the later
part of 1946 and in early 1947 was intensified with demolition and burning down
of the homes of several hundred thousand Bengali Muslim settlers in different
areas, including Mongoldoi, Borpeta etc. Assam congress government with a view
to gag a secular voice arrested him before partition period in 1946 and released
him after partition of India and escorted him up to Dahuk of Sylhet to push
inside Bangladesh at the dark night, during early 1948.

Grassroot organiser of
the Immigrants

Moulana Bhasani organized
a huge Krishok Shammelon (Peasant Conference) at Char Bhasan in 1929 and since
then he devoted most of his efforts to build up grassroot organization throughout
Brahmaputra Valley. He organized agricultural labourer and landless peasant of
Assam through the formation of Assam Chashi Majoor Samiti ( Assam Peasant and
Worker’s Association). He even organized Bangla-Assam Proja Sammelan
(Bengal-Assam tenants’ conference) in 1932 at the-then Pabna district. Summarizing
Bhasani’s activity and rise as a political leader, Amalendu Guha noted, “From
1928 to 1936, while still maintaining his contact with Bengal, Bhasani used to
move up and down the Brahmaputra to visit the riverside immigrant Muslim
villages in accessible areas of Assam and organized them on the basis of a
peasant programme including the demand for land. People, suffering under the oppression
of Zamindars in Bengal, were in any case flocking to Assam in large numbers in
Assam in order to settle on its beckoning wasteland.” On the other hand, British colonial power also
encouraged immigration which was considered as welcome phenomenon for labor-short,
land-abundant Assam for the economic point of view, as the immigrants living
the lives of inhuman amphibious turned thickest forests of Assam into smiling
paddy lands yielding all kinds of crops, bringing prosperity, health and wealth
to the province of Assam. By 1936, Bhasani became the undisputed leader of the
immigrant peasantry and got elected in the Assam assembly from south Dhubri
constituency in 1937. That he represented the peasant interest against the
interest of Zamindars became aptly clear when he said, “The capitalist and
imperialist government does not heed the problems of the poor peasant. This
government continues to allow the zamindars to have the power of giving
certificate. When zamindars can give certificate, it means they have the
license to use machine guns to collect revenue.”

Ethnic politics

By this time, the
unabated immigration of the landless Bengali Muslim peasantry instilled a
fear-psychosis of loosing land and identity in the minds of indigenous Assamese
ethnicities. More imaginary than real threat that caused psychological fear of
identity crisis that was brewing up during this period within the Assamese
ethnicities was fanned by both the colonial masters and the Assamese Hindu
ruling class leadership with a view to divide and rule. The British move to
make Bengali the official language of the province was designed to trigger
Assamese sentiment. The line system which was initially introduced to assuage
the fear-psychosis of the Assamese ethnicities of losing their own land grabbed
by the landless immigrants by containing the immigration was used as a tool to
evict large-scale settlers and merciless killings. The Line System coupled with
Bangal-Kheda then became the issues to be vehemently opposed and resisted by
the masses under the leadership of Moulana Bhasani. On November 18, 1939,
Bhasani declared in a conference of Assam Muslim League, “I have lost my
patience on account of the inhuman oppression carried on the lakhs of poor
Muhammedans of Assam by the Congress Government (under the leadership of
Bordoloi). Not only do I kick at the law by means of which the houses of lakhs
of people have been burnt down, … The whole world is docile before the mighty
and killer of the weak….The days have come now to get your demands fulfilled by
becoming Shaheeds(martyrs)”. He even compared the collective victimization of
Bengali peasantry in Assam with that of Hitler’s Nazi tactics in Germany. That
the colonial agents and the Assamese ruling class leaders played with the
cultural difference of the migrants and the ethnic tribals and the sentiment of
the Assamese ethnic communities became amply clear from the “irresponsible and
unfounded” utterances of European member of ICS G.S.Mullan regarding the
destruction of the whole structure of Assamese culture and civilization by
citing the rise of immigrant population in 1931 census. His mischievous intention
even prompted the Governor to announce that ‘in spite of the large increase in
the population of Assam at every census since 1901, the percentage of speakers
of Assamese to the total population has remained very steady. It is clear from
the figures of increase in the speakers of Assamese at the Census that the [Assamese]
language is at present no danger of suppression’.

Role of middle class

It is interesting to
note that the Moulana Bhasani’s relentless struggle for the cause of the
Bengali peasantry could not garner tangible support from both Bengali Hindu as
well as Muslim upper class leadership as well as from the educated Bengali-speaking
middle class. But this middleclass and uppercaste leadership of the both
religious section of Bengali community jumped into the fray to woo the support
of the completely shattered, brutally oppressed Bengali Muslim peasantry when the-then
government made the unilateral determination in 1935 “to close down the Bengali
classes in schools” to create another wedge between the Assamese and the
Bengali. Moulana Bhasani being the folk-hero and a leader organically linked
with masses who had faith on his divine quality and his uncompromising - self-sacrificing
character, could only realize the intertwined relationship between the peasant
question and nationality question, though this is only one of the vital
components of complex and intricately related issues of caste-class in the process of building a
nationality and on the question of identity crisis. His realization of the intertwined
relationship of peasant interest, religiosity and the linguistic nationality
was also visible from his later role as activist and political leader in the independence
movement of Bangladesh.

Beyond religious domain

That he did not fight
for a particular religion or race became clear when he urged to observe “Assam
Day” on March 10, 1947 to demand independence of Assam and declared “My
struggle is against the British imperialism and the misrule and atrocities of
Assam Government and not against any particular religious or racial groups in
Assam.” From the dream of his last days
also, it became apparent that he applied his mind for the cause of all communities
of Bengal and North-Eastern region and this visionary folk-hero with his astute
organizing ability could hugely surpass the mindset as depicted by Amalendu
Guha, “The land-hungry Muslim immigrants from East Bengal segregated and
fighting against all odds, never appreciated the Assamese point of view. If all
men were equal in the eyes of Allah, why should thousands of acres of land
remain waste, when men in search of a livelihood were available to turn them
into smiling fields?”

Relevance of Moulana
Bhasani

At the present
juncture, the history of Assam is repeating itself albeit in a different local-national
and global perspective. The same migrant Muslim peasantry are being brutally
killed and mercilessly evicted by demolishing their shelters. The land grabbing
issue is similarly blown out of proportion by the vested interest to achieve
narrow political ends. Extending the view of Amalendu Guha who described
colonial Assam as a “case of contending hegemonies owing to the coexistence of
pan-India nationalism and regionalism, the latter manifesting itself in the
form of a struggle to drive out the Bengali immigrants from Assam”, one can
depict the present Assam as a case of contending hegemonies of neo-liberalism
and ethnic chauvinism, the latter manifesting itself as an ethnic-cleanser and
the resistances of poor peasantry and toiling masses are tacitly directed against
the neo-liberal policy drive of the Assamese ruling class in tow with their
master in Delhi. In these circumstances, Moulana Bhasani has become more
relevant for the religious as well as the left leaders to learn from his experience
and to devise more cogent formulations for struggle for justice befitting for
the present situation. Are these leaders listening? One will always become skeptical
to give an answer.((For the entire period of Bhasani’s
activity in Assam, we draw on Anisuzzaman Chowdhury edited book titled Moulana
Bhasani, Leader of the Toiling Masses” (Moulana Bhasani Foundation, NY, USA,
2012)